Third time was the charm for Ice. Ascended West Apostle from its west ridge and went directly up the west ridge of Ice. Once on the false summit, I had to descend a couple hundred feet to cross the gully below the snow. Fun, solid scramble! Returned via the SW face crap - not so fun.

I'd been eying this traverse since 2005 and finally made it up there. The climb to North Apostle & Ice Mtn was really fun with big talus high up just below the saddle. The traverse to West and the descent were slogs!

Traversed from Ice Mountain (across its south face); both the traverse from Ice and the descent to Lake Ann were a scree-slog fest, not really worth the effort, IMO, unless you are bent on collecting the summit for other reasons. Nevertheless, the "Ice Cubed" route does make for a logical loop for exploring this beautiful area. Wondering if anyone has traversed from Ice to W. Apostle staying on/near the ridge proper, and how it went?

climbed west apostle after deciding against the north/ice combo because of snow. ended up hiking through some snowy ledges to reach an unnamed lake below the west ridge. from there we climbed a sketchy snow gully before finishing off on the interesting west ridge. exhausting and frustrating!

The end of a very loong ridge traverse. Tough route finding from Ice to W. Apostle and ended up decending a crappy scree gully. Experienced a little of everything on this traverse. It was an awesome day!

This route is out of character for the Sawatch because it involves some gnarly 3rd & 4th class terrain. The traverse from Ice Mountain to west Apsotle is the toughest and longest part - it requires crossing endless ribs. A poor choice of descent route from West Apostle made for an epic day. The junk scree gully went fine for two of us but our partner had a very difficult time and ended up taking a nasty little fall.

The traverse from Ice to North will test your routefinding patience. We dropped down the s.w. gully from Ice and began traversing at 13400'. Multiple rib & gully traverses await to the saddle regardless of the line you choose. Hands down the best route in the Sawatch that I have done though.

Did this early season and was post-holing to my waist up to Lake Ann. Above there the route was good, easy mixed climbing. I ran into a guy later that day that has slept on the summit the night before and then continued over Ice Mtn. that day. Awesome!

Climbed with Ron. Trail to Lake Ann is one of the most beautiful in the state. No real difficulties on this climb - met three other climbers this Saturday. Weather moved in and nixed our plans to climb Ice Mountain. We'll be back next summer though, for Ice and North Apostle.

After reaching the summit of Ice, I followed the large gully directly below the summit down about 500'. Part way down I came across a mountain goat which I was surprised to see. Thinking I was getting too low I started traversing towards West Apostle, but the going was anything but easy so I reascended some terrain and eventually made my way to the final class 3 section above the W Apostle-Ice saddle. The guide mentions being careful about going to high, but I would caution about getting too low as well. Hard to say exactly where since I never saw cairns until it was obvious where to go. The climb up to the summit took a little longer than I expected, but the descent to Lake Anne was pretty mellow (lots of scree skiing). The whole traverse ended up taking me 8hrs, with the Ice to W Apostle section taking about 1hr 45min and the descent to the TH another 2hr 30min. The view from West Apostle is probably the best in the Sawatch that I've seen, and the Apostle Traverse one of the best routes in the range!

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